Part of the widespread acceptance of the Internet has been due to a rapid increase in access speeds. Initially, dial-up access was the only available option to access the Internet for all but the most sophisticated users. Dial-up access required a traditional modem connecting to the Internet over a conventional land-based telephone line. While businesses have had other options for years involving expensive high speed Ethernet connections (e.g. T1 or T3 lines), a major advance came considerably more recently when Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) and Cable modems became available for residential and business users and applications.
The demand for faster connections has coincided with increased use of the Internet. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period. To satisfy new uses and applications of the Internet, bandwidth requirements continue to grow, with no foreseeable decline in sight. Accordingly, it is common for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to offer several levels of service to their customers with various prices, with a difference in price for different level levels of service being based on the level of data throughput (also called line speed) that the connection is capable of delivering.
Currently, one way to determine data throughput, is to run data throughput tests that are readily available on the Internet. These tests are typically run from software installed on the customer's computer, usually downloaded as a Java® Applet. The software may initiate a file transfer, using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or some other method, to determine the amount of time a file of a set size takes to transfer over the connection. Calculations are made by the software using this information to determine a data throughput for the connection.
Inaccuracies and bandwidth limitations may result from the above-described method for testing data throughput connections. Common factors that may result in inaccurate measurements include: wired cabling quality, type of wired home networking equipment used, type of wireless networking protocol between the computer and the modem, wireless network interference, computer performance (i.e. processing power, memory size, type of network card), firewall filtering, and traffic from other elements on the network. Furthermore, as understood by ISPs, service agreements are limited to line speed to the customer premises (i.e., the modem of the customer) and not to a computer within the customer premises.